Sex

Originally posted at: https://lukesgospel739.wordpress.com/2022/04/08/i-like/

I like porn:

[A]

• I like looking at the photos
• I like watching the videos
• I like making up and elaborating porn-based sex fantasies
• I enjoy masturbating

Disgusting and shameful to admit declare these things explicitly — I daren’t say “confess” — but it’s no good to lie about it either. It’s a problem that I do these things; it’s perhaps more of a problem that I want to do them, I enjoy them.

I like other things just as much, if not more:

[B]

• I like the feeling of power when I am on form
• I like the warmth of people smiling at me
• I like the full-body sensuality of yoga
• I love the feeling of being alive when I am plugged into a good book

Indulging in set B pleasures has no effect on my ability to enjoy set A activities, but indulging in set A pleasures weakens my ability to enjoy set B activities. On that criterion alone I should avoid set A and prefer set B.

More generally, enjoying set B strengthens me, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. I am happier and better company.

Over-indulging in set A weakens me. It erodes my ability to concentrate or follow a path. I become bored, irritable, depressed. The very definition of a vice.

My ability to enjoy set A activities seems very robust, and always available. The slightest trigger will set my mind or my eyes or my hands wandering.

Set B seems harder to hold. Either I put it off because I think I don’t deserve it (there is always work to be done), or it seems beyond my power. I noticed after making up these two lists that A are voiced actively and B passively — really it is the other way around.

Conclusion/CTA

• how can I envisage B as active? As creating myself (rather than expending myself, in A)?
• gravitate towards B
• find B substitutes when I am triggered towards A (diary exercise: given a specific trigger that led me to A, think of a B that might have answered)